A fine, moving, important work for young readers.
Starting in 1916, young women in New Jersey were hired to paint the luminous dials of watches—with lethal consequences.
The young readers’ edition of The Radium Girls (2017) pulls no punches. As in the adult version, it describes in agonizing detail the diseases that destroyed the lives of young dial painters who were instructed to “lip point” their brushes with each dip of radium paint. They’d leave work literally glowing, having absorbed such a large quantity of the dangerous radioactive element that they’d been told was good for their health. Moore tracks more than a dozen of the girls through their extreme suffering as the radium loosened their teeth, destroyed their jaws, ate away their bones, and caused lethal tumors. Even after the deadly aftereffects were documented, another company opened a dial-painting studio in Illinois with a similar outcome. Although these young women’s lives often ended tragically early, their determination to achieve a legal victory against the negligent companies had lasting consequences: Both important laws that would protect future workers from unsafe employment practices and improve workers’ compensation laws and a better understanding of the medical outcomes of radioactivity exposure, which also helped end nuclear tests, resulted. The only discordant note in this sensitive presentation is a single unnecessary, pandering sentence: “Grace recalled that even her boogers became luminously green!”
A fine, moving, important work for young readers. (timeline, end notes, bibliography) (Nonfiction. 10-18)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-7282-1034-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Sourcebooks eXplore
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2020
A breezy, bustling bucketful of courageous acts and eye-popping feats.
Why should grown-ups get all the historical, scientific, athletic, cinematic, and artistic glory?
Choosing exemplars from both past and present, Mitchell includes but goes well beyond Alexander the Great, Anne Frank, and like usual suspects to introduce a host of lesser-known luminaries. These include Shapur II, who was formally crowned king of Persia before he was born, Indian dancer/professional architect Sheila Sri Prakash, transgender spokesperson Jazz Jennings, inventor Param Jaggi, and an international host of other teen or preteen activists and prodigies. The individual portraits range from one paragraph to several pages in length, and they are interspersed with group tributes to, for instance, the Nazi-resisting “Swingkinder,” the striking New York City newsboys, and the marchers of the Birmingham Children’s Crusade. Mitchell even offers would-be villains a role model in Elagabalus, “boy emperor of Rome,” though she notes that he, at least, came to an awful end: “Then, then! They dumped his remains in the Tiber River, to be nommed by fish for all eternity.” The entries are arranged in no evident order, and though the backmatter includes multiple booklists, a personality quiz, a glossary, and even a quick Braille primer (with Braille jokes to decode), there is no index. Still, for readers whose fires need lighting, there’s motivational kindling on nearly every page.
A breezy, bustling bucketful of courageous acts and eye-popping feats. (finished illustrations not seen) (Collective biography. 10-13)Pub Date: May 10, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-14-751813-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Puffin
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2015
Deftly written and informative; a call for vigilance and equality.
An examination of the history of Chinese American experiences.
Blackburn opens with a note to readers about growing up feeling invisible as a multicultural, biracial Chinese American. She notes the tremendous diversity of Chinese American history and writes that this book is a starting point for learning more. The evenly paced narrative starts with the earliest recorded arrival of the Chinese in America in 1834. A teenage girl, whose real name is unknown, arrived in New York Harbor with the Carnes brothers, merchants who imported Chinese goods and put her on display “like an animal in a circus.” The author then examines shifting laws, U.S. and global political and economic climates, and changing societal attitudes. The book introduces the highlighted people—including Yee Ah Tye, Wong Kim Ark, Mabel Ping-Hua Lee, and Vincent Chen—in relation to lawsuits or other transformative events; they also stand as examples for explaining concepts such as racial hierarchy and the model minority myth. Maps, photos, and documents are interspersed throughout. Chapters close with questions that encourage readers to think critically about systems of oppression, actively engage with the material, and draw connections to their own lives. Although the book covers a wide span of history, from the Gold Rush to the rise in anti-Asian hate during the Covid-19 pandemic, it thoroughly explains the various events. Blackburn doesn’t shy away from describing terrible setbacks, but she balances them with examples of solidarity and progress.
Deftly written and informative; a call for vigilance and equality. (resources, bibliography, image credits) (Nonfiction. 10-14)Pub Date: March 26, 2024
ISBN: 9780593567630
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Jan. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2024
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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